Cellular communication systems, such as those providing cellular telephone and personal communicator service, are characterized by overlapping cells each having a cell site transmitter. The cell site transmitters are often referred to as base stations. Such cellular communication systems include public systems that serve a city or region, residential systems that serve a home or office, and private systems that serve, by example, an office building or a hotel. The cells of the latter two systems are typically much smaller than the cells of the public system, which may have a diameter of several kilometers. A typical mobile station or user transceiver terminal is capable of movement between adjacent cells, with an ongoing communication connection being handed off between base stations as the mobile station leaves the coverage area of one cell and enters the coverage area of another cell.
While in most instances the exact geographical location of the base stations or mobile stations is of little importance, it can be appreciated that in certain situations, such as emergency situations, this information may become very important. By example, if a user were to place an emergency call (e.g., a 911 call), then an ability to accurately determine the location of the user can aid in dispatching emergency services to the user. This is especially true when calls are received from highway travelers who may be unfamiliar with the region from where they are making the emergency call, and who may thus be unable to give their location. Furthermore, in some circumstances the user may be physically incapable of communicating their location when placing an emergency call. Unfortunately, many conventional cellular communication systems do not provide a mechanism to determine and report the user's location with a degree of specificity that would aid in rapidly locating the user.
Another useful feature that is not adequately addressed by conventional cellular communication systems is an ability to inform a mobile station user of an approximate location of the user relative to a geographical area within which a base station is situated. For example, it would be useful to indicate, especially at night or in inclement weather, that the user is passing through or close to a certain town, or is located near to a major highway intersection. Currently specified cellular communication systems do not address this need.